Featured Home: Rural Life in the City With Country View Colonial

[CREDIT: Statewide MLS] A view of 250 Country View Road from the street.

[CREDIT: Statewide MLS]

WARWICK, R.I. This week’s Warwick Post Featured Home is on Country View, surrounded by spacious, well-built homes in a very private neighborhood that’s a well-kept secret in Warwick: a country feel in the city.

Country View Estates is a neighborhood characterized by gracious lot sizes and views of the Valley Country Club. There are a few homes for sale in this neighborhood right now and our featured home is 250 Country View which is a nine-room 2,678 above-grade square foot Colonial with four beds and 2.5 baths on a 40,000 square foot lot.

This is the type of home and lot you’d find in the subdivisions of rural areas, like Richmond, Exeter or Scituate and yet you have all the convenience of Warwick. Listed for 474,000, the property is 177 per foot and is a great opportunity to get into a country like neighborhood without leaving Warwick.

Check out the pictures of not only the classic colonial floor plan, but the great lot and surroundings.

Heading into the fourth of July we are seeing possible signs of a slow down due to buyer fatigue and sellers not seeing enough inventory to purchase when they sell their current home. A few things to consider if you are a seller looking to buy are below:

If you are financing your next purchase, make sure to use a lender that can close quickly and with less headaches. If your lender does upfront underwriting you can close on a home within about 3 weeks of signing the purchase and sales contract. This helps sellers who are buying their next home because it lengthens the window of time you have to shop for your next home, once you accept an offer on your current property. If you combine using a fast lender with a delayed closing date, and of course use the right Real Estate agent or broker who is focused on your needs and works with buyers (for this reason many single agents, not on Real Estate Teams, are not a good choice as your buyer agent because they are too busy with other responsibilities. If you’re a home buyer you want to make sure your agent has time for you, especially in a fast moving market) then you can almost always find a great home to move to within 60-90 days. That really is an eternity in today’s world, even in the low inventory climate we are facing in Real Estate.

Here’s an example, John uses mortgage company A that needs at least 45 days to close and an agent who works part time as a Realtor. Even if he signs a contract on his current property with a 90 day close (delayed closing) he has almost no shot of finding a suitable place to move to and feels like he can’t sell. Meanwhile, Jane uses mortgage company B which needs only 15-20 days to close and she uses a full time agent. In the same scenario, Jane can shop for up to 30 days longer which is an eternity when you’re working with a good agent who knows the market and is full time. This is why on our team we refer lenders who close quickly and all of our agents are full time.

Use the “Sale Subject to Suitable Housing” provision. This means that it can be made a contingency of your contract that the sale is subject to you having a suitable place to move.

Use a search engine that is updating closer to Real Time than Trulia and Zillow do. Don’t shoot the messenger; Trulia and Zillow are inaccurate, slow and don’t feed directly from our Multiple Listing Service. RI Living as well as sites like ours, www.Findmydreamhome.net do feed from the Multiple Listing Service, so even though the data isn’t perfect, it is much more accurate and updates more quickly. Often “New listings” on Zillow are actually 3-4 days old. In short you might love the user experience on Trulia or Zillow, however, the information you’re looking at is bottom of the barrel when it comes to accuracy.

Get pre-qualified to purchase your next home right away. Know where you stand, don’t sell your home and then say, oh boy, we better meet with a loan officer. Get a pre-approval or better yet TBD commitment letter subject to you selling your home. Any good loan officer can do this for you and referencing #1 ask your lender, how fast can you close once I find the right property?

Price your current home right and be a “motivated seller” even if your sale is contingent on you finding suitable housing. The data is in and pricing it right still nets you the most money in the long run. So don’t hedge too much and short change yourself by overpricing, because “you still have to find a place”. You still want the most money when you sell and that will never hurt you. In the long run, getting the most out of deals while still making win-win deals is one of the ways you can build sustainable wealth.

Develop a contingency plan. Referencing #5, if you get the perfect offer on your home, its all the money from a great buyer, you don’t want to freeze. As Steve Miller once said “Take the money and run”. Figure out a strategy for short term housing if need be. At the end of the day, if you want to sell your home there will always be speed bumps, but if the home doesn’t fit you any longer then you navigate those speed bumps because in the long run, it makes sense for your family.

I hope these tips are helpful to prospective home sellers and if you have questions about the market please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call 401-519-5388 and we’ll be happy to help. Enjoy the (finally) great warm weather we’ve been experiencing and until next time, happy house hunting.